"I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear… - John Galsworthy

"I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine we are fighting this great war, if it is not to reestablish the belief in love as the guiding principle of life?" Laird shook his head. "We are fighting to redress a balance, which was in danger of being lost."
"The balance of power?"
"Heavens! — no! The balance of philosophy."
Pierson smiled. "That sounds very clever, George; but again, I don't follow you."
"The balance between the sayings: 'Might is Right,' and 'Right is Might.' They're both half-truth, but the first was beating the other out of the field. All the rest of it is cant, you know. And by the way, sir, your Church is solid for punishment of the evildoer. Where's mercy there? Either its God is not merciful, or else it doesn't believe in its God.

John Galsworthy

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About John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy OM (14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906–1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932.

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Alternative Names: John Sinjohn

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E. M. Forster Theodore Dreiser George Eliot Boris Pasternak Thomas Mann

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The world's a fine place for those who go out to take it; there's lots of unknown stuff in it yet. I'll fill your lap, my pretty, so full of treasures that you shan't know yourself. A man wasn't meant to sit at home...

PERSONS OF THE PLAY JAMES HOW, solicitor WALTER HOW, solicitor ROBERT COKESON, their managing clerk WILLIAM FALDER, their junior clerk SWEEDLE, their office-boy WISTER, a detective COWLEY, a cashier MR. JUSTICE FLOYD, a judge HAROLD CLEAVER, an old advocate HECTOR FROME, a young advocate CAPTAIN DANSON, V.C., a prison governor THE REV. HUGH MILLER, a prison chaplain EDWARD CLEMENT, a prison doctor WOODER, a chief warder MOANEY, convict CLIFTON, convict O’CLEARY, convict RUTH HONEYWILL, a woman

FALDER’S work [a shirt to which he is putting buttonholes] is hung to a nail on the wall over a small wooden table, on which the novel “Lorna Doone” lies open.

"I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine we are … - John Galsworthy

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